Home of More Opportunity – LiveInRegina.com
1. Purpose
Regina is experiencing a skilled labour shortage, equating to $500 million in reduced economic activity in the region. To address this shortage and support business growth in the city, Economic Development Regina (EDR) has launched a multi-year talent attraction strategy – encouraging interprovincial migration from Canadian cities with a higher cost-of-living. The strategy aims to fill high demand jobs within the city and build a future workforce to support new infrastructure and business investment.
To aid prospective residents in their decision to move to Regina, EDR launched a website rooted in Regina’s value proposition of affordability, quality of life and career opportunities. The intent was to create a non-EDR branded digital asset that could be used by EDR, local employers and other government entities to promote Regina’s lifestyle advantage to non-residents who fit our demographic profile.
2. Meeting Objectives
Objective: Drive high-intent traffic from key markets to LiveinRegina.com
- Result: 17,500+ website sessions across Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax – focused on housing and job search
Objective: Generate engagement with key elements on Regina’s value proposition
- Result: The housing page saw engagement rates as high as 93%, and the career page 300+ referrals to SaskJobs.ca
Objective: Convert users from awareness to active consideration
- Result: 32 users submitted ‘Contact Us’ forms, engaging with EDR’s virtual concierge service. Of these inquiries, 72% were career-related questions with a growing number from students and soon-to-be graduates.
3. Challenges/Changes Made
Challenge: SaskJobs.ca, the primary job-posting website used by Saskatchewan employers, includes both skilled and unskilled job postings, creating a false sense of the number of quality careers available in Regina.
Action: EDR worked with the SaskJobs team to create custom RSS feeds of job listings that grouped like-minded job categories together and removed the unskilled job postings resulting is a curated listing of high-quality careers with live job numbers fed into the website.
4. Target Audiences
Three marketing personas were identified through the research process. Collectively, our personas are cost-conscious individuals who prioritize work-life balance and family. Though at different career stages, they all face financial challenges that hinder their ideal lifestyle–whether due to high city living costs or limited career growth opportunities.
Geographically, we are targeting people in key markets (Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax) whose values/characteristics naturally align to Regina’s advantage.
5. Category specific details:
LiveInRegina.com is rich in data, demonstrating Regina’s value proposition:
- Average housing and rental prices are updated monthly, placing Regina as the most affordable major Canadian city, with links to current listings
- Cost-of-living calculator s shows the percentage of income spent on taxes, utilities and housing at multiple income levels, comparing Regina to other cities
- Regina’s 17-minute average commute time promotes quality of life
- Custom jobs searches are integrated into the site – offered in partnership with SaskJobs (provincial job posting site)
New resident testimonials highlight why Regina is a good fit for newcomers, executives and families, and prospective residents are connected with high demand jobs and housing options through custom search queries.
The Contact Us form on the bottom of each page connects prospective residents to a virtual concierge service staffed by EDR.
6. Sustainability
Retention of new residents was important for long-term growth, and we intently created a message that would attract residents who shared the values of the community, and not just the lower cost-of-living advantage. The marketing personas narrowed in on the types of people we were looking to attract and retain.
